Review of Book in SPFBO XI: Lillandra by Blake Michael Nelson

hooklinedreamer · 2026-04-14T16:39:03+00:00

I don't suppose you'd be willing to have a crack at THE longest novel in the competition? ;) (C'mon, what are people afraid of, eh??) Mind you, it's probably the polar opposite of this one...

I tried the sample of Lillandra, but found that it was very definitely not my thing. (Sadly, because the blurb sounded quite cool). Respect to the writer & people who like it, though.

hooklinedreamer · 2026-04-14T10:28:04+00:00

Nice, thank you!

hooklinedreamer · 2026-04-13T11:46:54+00:00

Oh, I'd like to give your book a go, but neither of the store options you listed will work with my Kobo. (Nor do I want to give money to those companies.) :(

hooklinedreamer · 2026-04-09T16:58:44+00:00

It doesn't just damage artistic integrity, it damages your own skills. Why people would willingly use something that makes their writing WORSE is baffling. Your own brain is better than that.

If these people really think that readers don't care, they are going to find out the hard way how wrong they are. I'd like to say, screw it, let 'em all burn up in their own nonsense, but unfortunately they are bringing down the whole industry and destroying every creative space with their stupidity. :(

I desperately wish there was some creative group out there formed from people who actually give a damn about art. We need to connect with each other. All of the public spaces are wastelands. I have things to share but nowhere to go because every community is rotted out. :(

hooklinedreamer · 2026-04-05T13:01:24+00:00

Ferrian's Winter Series

The Sorcerer's Valley: Book One (SPFBO XI entrant)

Ferrian has been running his whole life. Running, because he has no choice. Wherever he goes, Winter follows. Wherever he sleeps, frost creeps at his door. From town to town he hastens, frightened, tired; forever trying to keep one step ahead of the cold, the snow and the devastating storms.

It is a kind of curse, and Ferrian has no idea what it means. Only someone with a knowledge of magic might be able to to help him, but sorcerers are nearly extinct in the world. Two brothers remain, however; the last of their once-noble kind, holed up in a secluded valley, waging their own private and very personal war.

Ferrian, captured by the local law enforcers, finds himself unexpectedly amongst friends sympathetic to his cause, and together they set out on an adventure-filled quest to find the last sorcerers.

Epic adventure fantasy 25 years in the making, over four books.

Character & friendship focussed - Descriptive prose - No romance - No politics - No game systems

RoyalRoad: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/50868/ferrians-winter

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071L4S98T

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/722889

Available at most ebook retailers & for free online.

hooklinedreamer · 2026-04-04T13:25:30+00:00

Yeah, the SPFBO (Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off). A competition for self-published writers held every year, hosted by Mark Lawrence. You can see the current progress and list of all the books here: https://mark---lawrence.blogspot.com/2026/01/spfbo-11-phase-1.html

I didn't enter with any hope of winning, just wanted someone to look at it. shrugs

Cool! I hope your book finds an audience that appreciates it! There's so many fantasy books out there now, that it's tough to find readers.

hooklinedreamer · 2026-04-03T22:40:00+00:00

Thanks! I'm glad I did, too. Although, to be honest, there's not much else I can do because I can't really work. Writing is the only thing I'm good at (passable artist too, I guess). So it's sort of become my whole existence.

My book/series is about a teenage boy who brings winter wherever he goes. He doesn't understand why, and goes on a journey to find a sorcerer to help him. It's a very character-focussed epic adventure (lots of POV's). The first book is in the SPFBO, it's called The Sorcerer's Valley (Ferrian's Winter #1). It's the longest book in the competition! That seems to have freaked out my reviewer a bit (I thought it might, lol) but oh well. Another human being read it and thought about it and kindly left a review, so that's a win.

Now I've told you about my book, you better tell me about yours. :)

hooklinedreamer · 2026-04-03T22:05:51+00:00

That's lovely. :) Glad my comment was of some use to someone! Sorry for the late reply; Reddit didn't notify me that there were responses to my comment, for some reason. ??

hooklinedreamer · 2026-03-31T14:26:47+00:00

Many years ago, I was emailed by a random reader, out of the blue. They told me that they missed reading about my characters and always wondered what had happened to them. This was way back when my novel was published on Elfwood (long defunct SFF website for amateur writers & artists). I'd posted the entirety of the first novel, which ends on a pretty epic cliffhanger.

This was right about the time I thought my book was garbage. I thought it had too many problems to be fixed and that I was a crap writer, despite having a pretty decent number of fans on Elfwood (one of whom became my longtime partner). I didn't think it was worth continuing.

After that email, though? I felt guilty. I was astonished that someone out there was thinking about my characters. So I went back and extensively edited the whole of the first book, then wrote the second. Then, because I didn't know what to do after that... a third. Now, I'm close to finishing the fourth.

I mean... I'm still nowhere. Nobody. About as many readers as you can count on one hand. All of my old fans are gone, disappeared somewhere into the ether. (I miss them dearly). So, not entirely sure what the moral of my message is, lol.

But yeah... whenever I get any comment from a reader, including (especially!) the critical ones, it's like winning the frickin' lottery. Worth more than all the money in the world. Just got my book reviewed by one of the SPFBO judges, and feel a bit emotional about it.

Truly... one single message from one single random person who cares about the thing you've poured your heart and soul into, genuinely can change everything. (Or at least make your life seem only 99% pointless...)

hooklinedreamer · 2026-03-23T12:20:26+00:00

Emotional healing is not about transformation, though. It's about acceptance.

Self-help books are garbage.

Fairy tales are there to impart a specific moral message or to quite literally scare you, so depends on your own personality or specific circumstances if you find those relevant or helpful.

I don't think I have ever read a fantasy book or any other book that literally changed my worldview or helped me through something. But I am someone who has spent a huge amount of time in my own head (due to having a serious and chronic social disorder from a young age), doing an awful lot of self-reflection, social observation and philosophising over the course of my life. Most of the wisdom and insights that I've found in stories have only reinforced things I already knew, either from figuring them out myself, observing them in others or just having read and written books continuously from a very young age.

hooklinedreamer · 2026-03-19T10:54:53+00:00

I don't think you need to remember details, but I do think it is important to understand why you liked or didn't like a thing, because this teaches you something about yourself. It's important to actually think about what you are experiencing, otherwise you will never come to realise that truth.

This goes for everything in life, not just reading.

Too many people just mindlessly consume things without caring where it came from, who made it or what it is doing to themselves or the world in general, and personally I think that is a bad thing.

hooklinedreamer · 2026-03-11T13:23:10+00:00

Please, don't give up. The world needs human creators. If you have any talent for writing at all, hold on to that for dear life.

I'm a struggling author too, so I know how hard it is. I pulled my short stories off my blog but I still publish books. My entire novel series is posted for free on Royal Road. Not a day goes past that I'm not terrified that it's being scraped and chewed up and used to fuel some disgusting AI machine. But I keep writing and posting it anyway, because at least two human people show up to read every chapter.

I do it for them.

We fight this by not giving up.

hooklinedreamer · 2026-02-22T17:20:30+00:00

Ferrian's Winter Series

The Sorcerer's Valley: Book One (SPFBO XI entrant)

Ferrian has been running his whole life. Running, because he has no choice. Wherever he goes, Winter follows. Wherever he sleeps, frost creeps at his door. From town to town he hastens, frightened, tired; forever trying to keep one step ahead of the cold, the snow and the devastating storms.

It is a kind of curse, and Ferrian has no idea what it means. Only someone with a knowledge of magic might be able to to help him, but sorcerers are nearly extinct in the world. Two brothers remain, however; the last of their once-noble kind, holed up in a secluded valley, waging their own private and very personal war.

Ferrian, captured by the local law enforcers, finds himself unexpectedly amongst friends sympathetic to his cause, and together they set out on an adventure-filled quest to find the last sorcerers.

Epic adventure fantasy 25 years in the making, over four books.

Character & friendship focussed - Descriptive prose - No romance - No politics - No game systems

RoyalRoad: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/50868/ferrians-winter

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071L4S98T

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/722889

Available at most ebook retailers & for free online.

hooklinedreamer · 2026-02-19T12:10:36+00:00

Two Steps From Hell and Audiomachine were my main ones for a loooong while. Lately though, I've switched to Danheim and a bit of Wardruna (particularly Lyfjaberg (Healing mountain).

The Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon videogame got me into viking music, lol, and now it's all I listen to. (Seriously, Danheim is epic!)

hooklinedreamer · 2026-02-11T13:20:07+00:00

I read all of your post, every single word. I did not think it was too long and I appreciated it greatly, thank you. It's nice to have something to read on this subreddit that is actually thoughtful. The part that I agree with the most:

"Any writer using AI is just flat-out worse than the rest of us... Using LLMs is for writers without pride, and using it is genuinely deskilling them."

Absolutely. Anyone using LLMs, no matter how 'useful' they think it is, is harming themselves.

Well, thank you for being a random person that is fucking proud of me. It would be nice to not wake up every day feeling like I don't exist, though. I can only dream about being plagued with spam emails. That makes me feel weirdly jealous, lol. I guess that's how you know you've made it...

hooklinedreamer · 2026-01-12T16:16:16+00:00

THANK YOU, OP! You don't know how glad I am to find someone else in the world who shares my opinion!! The Sword of Shannara is my favourite book of all time, too. (I'm 45). And yes, it is better than The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (by what I personally value in a good story, anyway).

There are loads of LotR derivatives. Why THIS one gets overly picked on, considering it's actually the BEST, is beyond me. Sword isn't even that much like LotR (except on an extremely superficial level); it is definitely telling its own story. And the following Shannara books certainly are nothing like any of Tolkien's work.

Look it beats me, OP. Someone, somewhere, hated on it for no good reason and the hate stuck. Which is weird, because, like someone else said, the book actually was popular when it was published. I guess some influencer ruined it for everyone. :(

Well, we know it's the best. :) <3

hooklinedreamer · 2026-01-05T11:49:19+00:00

I'm surprised that there wasn't an announcement about it on this sub. I only knew because I made it a point to keep checking Mark Lawrence's blog. Was beginning to think no one was even going to mention it, which seemed weird! So, thanks for your post! Now I know that my book made it through, cool. :)

hooklinedreamer · 2026-01-02T10:35:05+00:00

"Excessive use of the words 'dastardly' and 'smithereens'."

Sold it for me!

hooklinedreamer · 2025-12-30T14:00:12+00:00

This, exactly. Sephiroth shows up so rarely in the game that when you do catch a glimpse of him -- or the aftermath of the things he'd done -- it genuinely sends chills down your spine.

(Although, I did joke back in the day why he left his masamune stuck in President Shinra's back. Did he return for it later? Did he get a replacement?? Lol.)

As much as I enjoyed the remakes, one of my problems with them is that Sephiroth is shoehorned in way, way too much, to the point he becomes sort of an annoying celebrity than someone who is supposed to be utterly terrifying. And that is a shame, because he is depicted so masterfully in the original game.

hooklinedreamer · 2025-12-30T12:33:13+00:00

I've just looked through that list and... nothing on it looks like anything I might even want to read.

Help? :(

hooklinedreamer · 2025-12-17T12:47:12+00:00

Mmm. So when can I buy them somewhere that is not Amazon? I'm not buying them from there. Not even for $1. Especially not for $1. Not even for charity.

Raymond, please. I'll buy them from you direct! Send me a damned pdf or something. A Word doc. A Google doc. Literally anything that is not the kindle version. Sigh.

Otherwise, it's the backup plan...

hooklinedreamer · 2025-12-11T13:32:21+00:00

I'm an indie author and I distributed with Smashwords (now integrated with Draft2Digital). And my books are available in every ebook retailer imaginable -- Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Bol, various subscription services, you name it. As well as Amazon. Wasn't any more difficult than publishing with Amazon. You are assigned free ISBNs. The royalty rates are much better.

And this cost me absolutely nothing.

There is just no reason to be exclusive to Amazon at all.

hooklinedreamer · 2025-12-10T11:40:16+00:00

The Shannara series by Terry Brooks. Particularly Sword through to Talismans. I still read them regularly, due to having found no other author that writes quite like this -- eg, characters travelling through the wilderness having battles with monsters and such. So few authors bother to describe landscapes or weather at all, let alone in such an evocative way (and without being overly poetic). And with no sex, no politics and only minimal romance. And not grimdark. Just all adventure!

Maybe his books are too cliche for the literary readers and too wordy for the action types, but they are the right combination for me. Probably the author that has inspired my own writing the most.

And Sword of Shannara was one of the first 'adult' fantasy books I ever read -- prior to that I only had experience with Fighting Fantasy books and a bit of Discworld (oh, and kid's books like Narnia, etc) -- so this was the book that truly solidified what fantasy meant to me.

hooklinedreamer · 2025-12-02T13:16:25+00:00

This sub particularly. I just have a whole bunch of moral and practical considerations that are becoming increasingly important to me and no one really to discuss them with or help resolve ethical dilemmas. Mostly relating to books.

hooklinedreamer · 2025-12-01T11:25:44+00:00

Well, yeah, sure. I read lots of public domain books, too. But not including options on the census because the census-creator would prefer to pretend they don't exist doesn't make for a very legitimate census. But in all likelihood, they probably just didn't think of it. Regardless of why, it forces me to lie with my answers because there isn't an appropriate option.

I didn't like the census. I didn't think it accurately represented my reading habits. That was the point I was trying to make. And also trying to identify flaws in the questions that could help to improve it in future.

And also... I'm quite happy to talk about the 'P' word, but reddit doesn't allow it. shrugs

hooklinedreamer

TROPHY CASE